Lampard: We can master Europe

FRANK Lampard believes Chelsea can become masters of Europe after they clinched a place in the semi-finals of the Champions League for the second year running with a 6-5 aggregate victory over Bayern Munich in the Olympic Stadium.

FRANK Lampard believes Chelsea can become masters of Europe after they clinched a place in the semi-finals of the Champions League for the second year running with a 6-5 aggregate victory over Bayern Munich in the Olympic Stadium.

The Londoners, who beat Bayern 4-2 in the first leg at Stamford Bridge, were in dreamland on the half-hour last night when Lampard's 20-yard shot took a deflection off the unfortunate Munich defender Lucio to give Chelsea a three-goal advantage.

Claudio Pizarro equalised in the 64th minute only for Didier Drogba to put the tie beyond Bayern's reach with an 80th-minute header.

Some sloppy defending allowed Bayern to win the game 3-2 on the night with two goals in the closing stages from substitutes Paolo Guerrero and Mehmet Scholl, but Chelsea's aggregate win sets up a semi-final clash against the winners of the Juventus and Liverpool tie tonight.

And England midfielder Lampard is determined to go one better this year after Chelsea crashed out at the semi-final stage last season to French club Monaco when a place in the final seemed to be within their grasp.

Lampard said: "Last season's semi-final against Monaco was one of my biggest disappointments. Not just losing the game but the manner in which we lost. But now we have the extra strength in the team which we didn't have against Monaco.

"We know that we can win the Premiership with two more wins and once we've done that we can look forward to a massive two-legged semi-final and possibly a final in the Champions League.

"We know we are getting close but we won't start to think about the finishing line until we are right there.

"We are determined not to let the same thing happen again in the semi-final but it will be difficult because they are big teams.

"But there is a real resilience and spirit within this team and we have the experience of last year to guard us against any over-confidence."

Row

Meanwhile, on a night when Chelsea should have been celebrating their quarter-final success, they managed to become embroiled in another row with UEFA.

This time they were unhappy with the fact that banned coach Jose Mourinho was effectively hounded out of the Olympic Stadium because of the presence of TV cameras.

They were shadowing his every move as he prepared to take his seat in the main stand and Mourinho decided he could not watch the game in peace and left the stadium in a taxi to go back to the team's hotel.

Chelsea want an explanation from UEFA as to why cameras were allowed to get so close to Mourinho, who was serving the last match of his two-game UEFA touchline ban for bringing the game into disrepute.

Chelsea fitness coach Rui Faria made it clear the club were unhappy with the fact that Mourinho was prevented from watching the game in peace.

Faria said: "First of all I think it is fantastic that we are in the semi-finals. I think we were the better team over the two games.

"The most important thing is that we are in the semi-finals. Everybody has done a fantastic job and we are delighted.

"I didn't speak with Jose during the game. I think he watched the game at the hotel. His idea was to watch the match from the stands but I think he decided that he didn't have the privacy to do it and so he went back to the hotel."